Independent artist and producer Thomas Statnick has installed a Neve® 8424 console in his North Carolina studio because it allows him to maintain a familiar analogue workflow in a hybrid digital environment.

CVP, one of the UK’s leading production solutions providers, will be providing hands-on experience with some of the latest kit to reach the UK market at this year’s BSC Expo 2020 (Friday 31st January to Saturday 1st February, Battersea Evolution, London).

Featuring a set inspired as a homage to the BSC’s 70th anniversary, the showcase at BSC Expo will allow customers to compare like-for-like options and to get hands-on with the equipment they are interested in — along with all the necessary accessories — to find out how their creative desires can be best fulfilled.

Viaccess-Orca (VO), an Orange Group company and a global leader providing OTT and TV platforms, content protection, and advanced data solutions, announced today that the Malian Transmission and Broadcasting Corporation (SMTD) in West Africa has chosen VO's cardless Conditional Access System (CAS) to secure its free-to-view and pay-TV platforms as part of a nationwide government initiative to roll out digital terrestrial television (DTT). Thomson Broadcast has been tasked with handling the deployment for SMTD's new infrastructure, while also supplying the video headend, contribution and distribution network, and TV transmitters.

"We are excited about offering digital terrestrial television in Mali, as it will significantly improve our viewers' quality of experience while offering a broader range of content choices," said Ismaila Togola, CEO of SMTD. "Working with Thomson Broadcast and Viaccess-Orca, both leaders in their respective industries, will help us get this new DTT service securely deployed to market."

Cinematographer Si Bell and Director Anthony Byrne move crime drama series to a more cinematic look and feel

For four seasons, Thomas Shelby, his family and his gang — Peaky Blinders — have been captivating audiences around the world with this crime drama set in 1920s Birmingham, England in the aftermath of World War I. But the fifth season would mean a total change in how the series was to be shot, moving from Cooke S4/i spherical lenses (used since season three) to anamorphic with Cooke Optics' Anamorphic/i prime lenses as well as 4K for this season’s Netflix full-season distribution in the US, which became available on 4 October 2019 (UK distribution on BBC One began in early September with one episode per week).

One of the challenges for cinematographer Si Bell and director Anthony Byrne — both big fans of the series — was maintaining continuity with the four seasons that came before them, regardless of the new production changes.

“Anthony and I had wanted to do this series for a number of years, having watched all of it and always talking about it,” explained Bell. “When we got the gig, we both watched the entire series again and paid special attention to the things we loved, things we thought could be different and things we thought could be better. But we obviously had to keep continuity.”

Leading Spanish commercial broadcaster Atresmedia, home of Antena 3 and other popular entertainment channels, has complemented its existing Imagine Communications Versio™ integrated playout installation by deploying a Versio-based disaster recovery playout centre. The new backup facility maintains tight synchronisation with the primary playout centre to ensure instant and seamless failover should it be necessary.

New Diopters for creative cinematography from Tiffen

Diopters are specialized supplementary close up lenses for creative use, enabling a lens to focus closer than the normal minimum focal distance. Tiffen have introduced variations of diopters which create in-camera effects and partial focus changes.

Cooke Optics will present a range of its acclaimed hand-crafted lenses to the KitPlus Shows in Glasgow and Bristol on 31st May and 5th June respectively. From the latest full frame cine lenses to those with a vintage look, Cooke lenses bring the revered ‘Cooke Look’ to all kinds of content from Oscar-winning movies to TV dramas and music promos.

RED’s Dan Duran will be joining us from Hollywood, California to present "RED Workflow and its new Image Processing Pipeline.” Attendees will learn about the colour science behind RED’s Image Processing Pipeline (IPP2), which offers a completely overhauled workflow experience, featuring enhancements such as better management of challenging colours, an improved demosaic algorithm, smoother highlight roll-off and more. We will also be discussing modern RED workflow and a comprehensive overview of the advantages of High-Resolution RAW REDCODE files.

Blackmagic Design has announced that the European division of Perfect World Entertainment, a publisher of online multiplayer games, has implemented a live production solution featuring the Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K, ATEM Production Studio 4K and HyperDeck Studio 12G.